


Corrupt Blood

by Martiverse, Spearmintcondition



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Cullen is in lyrium withrawl and visits Samson in his cell before his judgement, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intense Arguing, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawal, M/M, Red Lyrium, Samson is in withdrawl too and bitter and desperate, Self-Harm, Unrequited Crush, also they kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:29:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26129569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martiverse/pseuds/Martiverse, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spearmintcondition/pseuds/Spearmintcondition
Summary: [...] Samson glanced at Cullen’s sword, still half in its sheath, and smiled with yellow teeth and red-rimmed eyes, strands of dark hair glued to his neck. His skin was pale, gaunt, he was the cyanotic incarnation of a dead man. Without his armour, it was again the Samson who roamed the slums of Kirkwall, begging for coin… little remained of the General he had been. His body looked much more fragile than Cullen remembered, now that  it had practically been drowned in clothes not his own… yet that weakness was familiar to him and it was difficult to drive the memory of the Templar he had been out of his mind.“Tense like in Kirkwall…” Samson commented barely squinting while scrutinizing him “AmIyour demon now?”And there it was, the stab where it hurt most. Samson had always had this talent.[...]
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Raleigh Samson, Sullen - Relationship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Corrupt Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Sangue corrotto](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25266649) by [Martiverse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martiverse/pseuds/Martiverse). 



> This is a translation of Sangue Corrotto, a brilliant fic by the equally awesome Martiverse! ♥
> 
> FYI: In this AU Cassandra holds the title of Inquisitor. The Herold is "just" the Herold, glowy hand and everything. (Just to avoid some pronoun confusion ;) )

“I was starting to wonder when you’d show up, Cullen…”

Samson spoke from a corner in his cell, lying on the damp and gloomy floor.

In his voice there was a bitter and forgotten irony; he didn’t even bother to look up. His back was turned, and Cullen felt more irritated than he should have been, being recognized solely by the cadence of his steps. It seemed unfair that Samson could still do that, creating a semblance of intimacy that had been broken for years.

_“…Cullen”_ muttered, half asleep, when he heard him pacing their room at night.

_“Cullen…”_ a warning with false menace from his bed, covering his eyes with his forearm, when Cullen decided to light a candle trying to drive away the darkness and nightmares.

_“Cullen“_ a greeting with closed eyes, still lying in his bed, every time Cullen returned to their room after being at the altar of Andraste, trying to defeat the past with faith.

Knowing that Samson could still recognize him so easily was proof that he also remembered the secrets his footsteps brought. Samson had seen every weakness of his and it would have been so easy, _oh, so easy,_ to sink his fingers where it would hurt the most and overthrow everything he had so laboriously tried to put behind himself.

Kinloch Hold, as well as Kirkwall, both cast shadows behind him that he could not undo.

At that moment Samson sat up and Cullen instinctively reached for his sword, but he froze before he could extract it fully, the distinctive whistle of the blade stopping him in his track.

A feeling of cold realization invaded him and immediately he was overcome by shame…

There was no honour in attacking an unarmed man, even if that man was Samson.

He responded with laughter from his cell and placed an elbow on the ground to push himself up.

He glanced at Cullen’s sword, still half in its sheath, and smiled with yellow teeth and red-rimmed eyes, strands of dark hair glued to his neck. His skin was pale, gaunt, he was the cyanotic incarnation of a dead man. Without his armour, it was again the Samson who roamed the slums of Kirkwall, begging for coin… little remained of the general he had been. His body looked much more fragile than Cullen remembered, now that it had practically been drowned in clothes not his own… yet that weakness was familiar to him and it was difficult to drive the memory of the Templar he had been out of his mind.

“Tense like in Kirkwall…” Samson commented barely squinting while scrutinizing him “Am _I_ your demon now?”

And there it was, the stab where it hurt most. Samson had always had this talent.

Cullen gripped the hilt of his sword to... to do what? Kill him? He wished he could say he would be doing it for Haven, for his troops, for the Inquisition… but that would have been a lie. The truth was, that Samson was the future from which he had been spared… even just looking at him made him sick.

Cullen had not saved himself from that fate by wit or skill. He had only shaken Cassandra’s hand and agreed to follow her, leaving Kirkwall to burn in his own ruins. He could have been at Therinfal, found his own end there, corrupted by the red lyrium and animated by madness. Nothing assured him that in front of Corypheus, confronted with the promise of lyrium, he would have had the strength to take a different path than Samson… trying to reassure himself that he would have done the right thing sounded like an empty lie: He had never been able to.

He had not made the right choice at Kinloch Hold, he had not made it following Meredith to Kirkwall, and, although he had confidence in the Inquisition, he sometimes doubted that he was cut out for the role he had been assigned.

When Cassandra recruited him, she hadn’t known him enough to say, she had chosen him for his qualities. Her decision was influenced only by the position he held. A position, Cullen knew, he never deserved. Meredith had placed him on a pedestal, only because he was good at looking the other way and being guided by his own fears. Absurd indeed, considering that all his life he had to hunt down and kill mages too weak to overcome their demons… without realizing, that the greatest demon was within himself, and that it was _fear_.

Cullen pushed his sword back with a clunk, feeling dull sweat bead on his back and unable to put a name to his discomfort.

It was a bad idea to go down to Skyhold’s prisons on a night like this. The absence of lyrium curled his throat and made him more paranoid than he should have been, more than it was wise to be. The distrust in Samson was justified … but there were metal bars between them. Samson had lost his armour and had been abandoned by Corypheus; he was no longer a threat… yet Cullen had reacted like a frightened horse, as skittish as after the circle’s fall, ready to put his hand to the sword in front of every shadow.

A caged lion fearing the whip, despite not being the one held captive. 

Before Cullen could speak, Samson stood with a huff. He placed his hands on his knees for support, but then his arms fell helpless along his sides. He staggered, and let himself fall back against the wall without losing his crooked grin. His legs trembled, and Cullen recognized the weakness, a symptom he unfortunately knew too well.

“What are you now? Commander? Ah… how good you are at making a career… It's nice to see an old friend, Rutherford. ”

“Liar.”

Beneath his fingers, Cullen could feel the leather of his sword hilt. He squeezed until it creaked, until the bones of his knuckles groaned in pain.

“What do you know? Maybe I’m really happy to see you…”

“I know we’re not friends. Not any more.”

“Oh” Samson’s expression did not fall, if anything his smile grew sharper. “…and so now I’m the bad guy…”

With the years the tone of his voice had become gruffer, more raspy, and Cullen now recognized the reason. It was the same thing that made his knees shake and his fingers itch. He shared his own insatiable thirst.

Now more than ever he felt it closing up his throat and pressing against his temples in its demand to be heard.

_Just a little bit. Just a drop. Just one vial._

He needed it to face this conversation. The lyrium was the only thing that allowed him to keep the past at bay but no. NO. Without, it would be better. They told him he was going to lose some of his memories, but the worst part was that _he remembered everything…_

He lifted his chin, clenching his teeth. His lips were dry, his mouth was dry. His mind wandered for a moment in a confused mist.

“You were better than that…” he whispered, softly.

After chasing away the guilt, there was nothing left but judgment and pity in Cullen’s eyes.

Samson gritted his teeth and his face twisted into an ill tempered snarl. Long furrows formed on his forehead and the root of his nose.

“I thought that about you, too,” he spat the words angrily, from between clenched yellow teeth, “but I suppose I wasn’t worth wasting a good word when Meredith left me to die. You’d rather forget about me. Fuck you, Cullen, the man of easy choices! You still hide behind a great ideal hoping it shines bright enough, so that you can hide in its shadow!”

“Giving in to Corypheus was the easy choice!” Cullen retorted, raising his voice to match Samson’s “believing the promises of a self-proclaimed God…”

“The only thing the Chantry left us Templars is the ability to kneel!” retorted Samson, embittered, “They do nothing but spit on His children and that’s a lesson I learned well. We’re already dead, Cullen. Me, you, everyone else. At least I gave them the chance to die with a sword in their hands!”

“Unleashing a war?”

“This world is going to shit on its own! None of _them_ deserved the end Meredith had decided for _me_!”

“And the people who died? The ransacked villages? The mines of Sahrnia? For Andraste’s sake, Samson, that doesn’t justify your actions!”

Samson slammed both hands against the bars, the metal trembled, causing Cullen to step back. His knuckles turned white and the rust slicked his fingers, his shoulders curved forward, threatening. He inhaled sharply between clenched teeth, almost as if he were preparing to shout, but all his anger came out in a hiss. And he lowered his gaze to the ground.

“… no. It does not justify them.” he admitted, his voice sour.

He looked a hundred years older…

“Easy to judge for you, from your safe position. I wonder how you’re always on the boat that doesn’t sink. You must be really good at polishing the sword of your superiors…”

“I was chosen for this position,” Cullen retorted, but his tone of voice betrayed him and Samson laughed.

“Yes, you seem _convinced_ … but if there’s one thing you’ve always been good at, it’s believing in the lies of others, bowing your head and obeying every command. Rutherford _the good bitch_ , how good he is at kneeling…”

Anger flared and blinded him for a moment.

Before he could even realize what he was doing, Cullen’s arm slipped between the bars as quick as a snake, and his clenched fist struck Samson square in the face. One moment he felt the impact on his clenched knuckles and the next he saw him hit the ground, landing on his side in a splash of dirty water and condensation.

There was no longer any armour to protect him, only linen clothes, threadbare and worn. He coughed, curled in upon himself on the ground like a wounded animal, and the noise seemed to melt his lungs, bouncing between his ribs as if he were about to break his sternum.

Cullen withdrew his hand still clenched tight, feeling his knuckles burn. His skin twinged from the impact, his conscience with shame. He closed his free hand around his fist, as if hiding it could erase what he had just done.

“… Samson,” he started, and froze, because an apology would have been inopportune.

Samson put all his weight on one elbow and only just lifted himself, coughing louder. He bowed forward and pulled himself to his knees and his harsh breath turned into raucous laughter. Thick blood oozed from his nose over his lips, getting stuck in between the sparse untended stubble.

“… it’s not me…” mumbled Samson, bending just his head forward, scrutinizing him from top to bottom “against who you are fighting, _Commander_?”

Cullen swallowed and straightened his posture. His back was clammy against the fabric of his shirt, his hand was back to clutching the hilt of his sword before he let it go. He concentrated on Samson’s eyes, desperately trying to stay focused.

“Don’t speak nonsense!” he barked.

He shook his head almost imperceptibly, _praying_ Samson was not sharp enough to read his other secrets.

“You’re not the kind of man who comes down here just to punch me,” he taunted, “What’s keeping you awake? What do you have to solve? Do you have to say goodbye before my head comes off my neck?” he drew a finger across his throat, grinning as if it were funny. His lips were red with the blood running from his nose “Or have the years finally made you less of an asshole with those behind bars, huh? Do you have anything for me, Rutherford? Are you here out of charity? To bring me the crumbs of what your precious inquisition collected from the red lyrium at the Temple of Dumat? Because I don’t know if you remember, since you’ve been on your leash at the Inquisition and they fill your bowl with the blue to make you a good soldier, but _I need it and I’m fucking freaking out down here…_ ”

Cullen opened his mouth to deny it all but nothing came out. His breath trembled, hoarse and dry and he was so ashamed that he lowered his gaze to the ground.

_Do not falter._

Samson narrows his eyes, and furrowed his brows. He stood up and advanced a couple of steps, studying him as if he had missed the details. His eyes ran over Cullen’s face, then descended to his hands, to trembling knees. Finally his eyes widened in understanding, the red of his irises even more visible and unhealthy “… _damn_ , Rutherford…”

“You’ll be tried,” Cullen interrupted him, trying to drown out his voice.

“That’s why you look like shit—”

“Tomorrow. It will be the Inquisitor who decides your fate”

“ — with dark circles under your eyes and everything. I bet you can’t feel your lips any more.”

“You will be questioned. We want every information about Corypheus —”

“And the bones. The joints. They fucking hurt, don’t they, huh?”

“— His plans, his movements. The remaining bases of the Red Templars —”

“A nice shit show this _Inquisition_. Pretends to do the right thing and then cuts you off from your lyrium. Your inquisitor is no better than that whore Meredith.”

“It was my choice!” Cullen slammed a clenched fist against the bars, the metal echoing with the force “Cassandra would never force me to…—” he bit himself off, aware that he had just confessed.

Samson huffed with the satisfied air of those who understood more than they should. He lifted his head, exposing his neck, and passed his forearm under his nose, smearing the blood. He smiled the same smile as when he won a hand of Wicked Grace and Cullen had never been able to put up with it.

“I do not owe you any explanation…” he answered through clenched teeth, but the tone came out less authorative than he would have liked.

“So you really quit…” Samson snorted. Swaying forward and placing his shoulder against the bars, grinning as he saw Cullen stiffen while obviously trying to convince himself not to back down “You, of all people. Mighty-Commander Rutherford, the best of us all. I can’t believe you betrayed the fucking Order…”

“You’re not in a position to accuse _me_ of treason!”

“Don’t ruffle yourself, it was a compliment…”

They remained silent for a long moment, so long that the absence of noise became first prickly and then levelled out again.

Cullen did not realize he was clenching his teeth until he sighed, and finally relaxed his jaw. With the huff of air, seemed to release some of the heaviness in his chest. He hunched a little, aware of the remaining weight, and massaged his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger trying to push back a headache he knew he was developing.

“You know, you’ve always been _lousy_ at Wicked Grace,” murmured Samson. This time he didn’t laugh, and the tone of his words seemed too nostalgic to really be an insult.

Cullen blinked, caught off guard, looking into his eyes for an explanation.

“What?” he asked, confused, and a moment later choked on his breath when Samson hit him violently in his side.

He hadn’t seen him stick his arm through the bars.

Samson struck him with the edge of his hand directly and accurately, avoiding armour, as they had taught them in the Order. They had tried that move a thousand times during drills in the Gallows, and Cullen had almost forgotten how much it _hurt_.

Betrayed, he instinctively retreated, one hand on his belt, the other on the pommel of his sword.

And that’s when he noticed.

“You’re always looking for a motive…” Samson sighed in a hoarse voice, but still with no trace of irony.

Cullen watched him, in disbelief. His knife, the horn-handled one that Leliana gave him, was gone. The sheath dangled empty at his side, just below where Samson had hit him.

“… you look at people’s eyes to see if they’re cheating… and you forget to look at their hands…”

The blade of the knife shone in the half-darkness of the cell, clenched between his pale fingers.

“Put it down, Samson”

Cullen raised a hand in his direction, trying to be commanding.

"Oh, so you can attack a defenceless man? Don’t I deserve a weapon?”

“You’re far from helpless”

Samson smiled while he passed his tongue over his blood-red lips. His eyes were the same colour, sullen, intense, heavy lidded. He lifted the blade only to press it flush against the flesh of his bare forearm.

“… at least on this we agree, _Commander…_ ”

The blade cut quickly through the skin and large droplets of blood swelled and dripped to the floor.

“What are you doing!”

It was meant to be a question, but the terror in Cullen’s voice made it an exclamation. He instinctively raised a hand to counterattack and silence a spell that did not come; Samson was no blood mage.

He stiffened and shivered and forced himself to close his eyes as not to drown in the memories.

He wasn’t at the Circle. _He wasn’t at the Circle._

His breaths became fragmented. Cullen shook his head, feeling his heart beating loudly in his chest, fluttering violently against his chest like a bird locked in a bone cage.

_Du-dun_ , like punches against an indestructible barrier. _Du-dun,_ an overwhelming vice. He blinked and swallowed and tried to concentrate.

“Do you hear it, Cullen?” Samson went on, his voice distant, beneath the sound of his own heart.

_Du-dun._ Rhythmic, pressing, too loud against his eardrums.

Cullen opened his eyes and looked up at Samson, who was scrutinizing him, looking for answers in his expression. It wasn’t just the heartbeat either… was more than that. It was a drum roll, the sound of a flooded river before it broke its embankment, overwhelming everything in its way. It was a song far more dangerous than the distorted echo in his memories…

Cullen clutched a hand over his heart and opened his mouth without being able to say anything.

“… Oh, yes, you feel it,” Samson smiled, blood still dripping over his teeth. Red eyes, red lips and his smile. Blood red like a vein of corrupt lyrium. His gaze was heavy, satisfied.

Cullen realized with horror that the heartbeat in his ears was not his own, but Samson’s.

“… the corrupt blood of a wicked man.” he sneered through yellow teeth. He opened the hand clutching the knife and dropped it to the ground, splashing the contents of a puddle below. The red mingled with the water, contaminating it, “Do not falter, Cullen. You remember the Chant?”

He stepped forward and Cullen thought to step back. He had the instinct to, but he didn’t move. As if his body was screaming to get away but his mind didn’t want to hear reason. The noise was louder now, and his body was creaking like old wood. His bones hurt, his mind contracted.

_Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter._

“Get off your pedestal before you come and judge me. Cullen the righteous. Cullen the hypocrite. Tell it 'no', come on. Face it… Let me see how you make the right choice” He grinned, passing his tongue over his lips and licking his blood away.

Samson was envious, perhaps, in his madness and despair. It was a feeling that twisted his guts and made him want to scream. Seeing Cullen from behind bars, right, once again… seeing him freed from the lyrium, when he himself hadn’t had a drop of red in five days, and mad with the thirst, the song vanishing.

Abandoned by Corypheus, abandoned by his own body… sometimes he would touch his arms, caressing it like something wrapped ready to dig in. He had scratched his elbows until his skin was red and scabbed to prove to himself that he was still in that cell. Because reality, however bad, was still preferable to any hallucination his mind would provide trying to make up for the lack of lyrium.

He had seen blood dripping from the ceiling until it engulfed him, filling his mouth and preventing him from shouting, he had heard with terrifying clarity the iron glove of Meredith herself tightening around his neck until it suffocated him and red crystals broke his skin and emerged from his entrails. Sometimes when opening his eyes he was in a filthy alley in Lowtown and only the loud noise of the waterfall reminded him that somewhere, in his hallucination, there still were bars to trap him in reality.

“You’re utterly insane,” Cullen gasped.

“And who’s fault is that?” Samson retorted, “You’d better kill me if the alternative is to leave me to rot down here without lyrium. Don’t I deserve your charity or _have you just forgotten about me again?!”_

Cullen opened his mouth to respond, intoxicated by the smell, and growled, showing teeth without being able to mutter a word. He raised his shield arm in a habitual reflex.

“Not as simple as it seemed, eh?” mocked Samson, sniffing out his weakness.

He approached the bars and abruptly thrust his arm through them, smearing blood into the grooves between rust and metal.

“How long, eh? How long have you been trying to stop?” he tilted his head to the side, spitting the words as if they were poison “The first week without it is the worst, but when months go by, oh, that’s where it starts to get all fucked up. When memories disappear and reality goes all twisted. You can drink all the seas of Thedas and still be thirsty. And the Red, ah, it’s so much better than the blue. It’s stronger. Crisper. Do you hear its song?”

“Not one word more!”

Cullen grabbed Samson’s wrist and pulled it down, trying to hide it away. He writhed in the grasp, but Cullen squeezed more forcefully and pulled him back, yanking him against the bars.

Samson grunted, when his side slammed against the metal. For a moment his vision blurred from the blow, but the pain was of little consequence. The bruised ribs only served to remind him that he was in reality… could almost consider it a favour. He heaved a harsh, dry laugh, looking again at the commander’s face. Oh, how pleased he was with the anger and terror he saw there.

“Now that you’ve heard the Red whisper at the Shrine of Dumat, you cannot get it out of your head, huh? Came to hunt me down with that _thirst_ in your throat…” he provoked further, amused “feel its call as if the room is full of crystals; your mind remembers the melody”

Cullen’s eyes clouded for a moment. He opened his lips and shook his head trying to silence a noise Samson could not hear.

“I told you to be quiet!” he yelled, and it wasn’t clear, whether he was talking to him or the melody that rumbled in his skull.

What was music to Cullen, was nothing more than a whisper to Samson. He needed _more_. A few drops of blood couldn’t sing for him; the corruption that already warmed his veins was not enough. He needed more, much more, a higher and more concentrated dose. The red lyrium had become a fundamental necessity for him; without it, it seemed to him, he no longer had the strength or the will to breathe.

He depended on what was now pure poison.

Whatever the Inquisitor’s decision, he knew for sure that he would never see a single drop of red lyrium again. If the Inquisitior proved as lenient as she was said to be, they would at least allow him to go back on the blue… but it wasn’t the same thing.

The Blue was _nothing_ by comparison. Granules. Splinters not big enough to open a wound and draw blood, only suitable to slip under your nails and ache.

His hands trembled in an annoyingly familiar way, and the thought of abstinence struck him with the same force as a fist. The terror crushed his sternum, trapping his breath in his throat.

He did not want to return to being the Samson of Kirkwall, desperate and forgotten. Cullen was back on the winner’s side pedestal, just like in the old days… he would be damned if this time he let him bask in his glory.

Anger clenched his stomach and hardened his facial features, making him look even more sharp. He bared his teeth like a wolf behind the bars of his cage. If he had to live like this, it was better to die.

“You should never have left your fortress to come and hunt me down…” he hissed, spitting the words into Cullen’s face “… but it was obvious that you would, wasn’t it. They trained us for it, didn’t they? Find the traitors, _the abominations_ , and kill them. Dogs that kill dogs!”

Cullen’s gaze was still hazy and his brows contracted in turmoil. The lack of lyrium stained his face with dark purple circles around his eyes, similar to those he had worn in Kirkwall.

He’d never realized Samson was stealing a quarter of his lyrium ration every morning, ever since they started sharing a room. He had subjected Cullen to a gradual abstinence for years without being able to stop himself, comforting him when his nightmares became worse, not being able to confess his crime… knowing perfectly well that a whole dose of lyrium would have subdued them.

They were both slaves. It was a collar and a leash.

“Wake up Cullen!” sneered Samson, with bitterness in his voice “This is real! Or can’t you tell any more? If even my blood sings for you, you won’t last another five minutes in front of raw lyrium… and I really hope that someone finds you and makes you choke on it.”

In that moment Cullen moved, as fast as when he had punched him in the face. Samson screwed his eyes shut in preparation to receive another blow, gritted his teeth, tilted his face a little to one side… but the fist did not come.

Instead, the grip on his wrist became more intense, immediately followed by a sharper press at the base of his cut.

He squinted, _sure_ that the blow was about to come…

Instead — bowed to his wrist, his lips parted like the most obliging of the workers at the Blooming Rose — Cullen’s tongue caressed along the cut covered in corrupt blood.

His eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings.

Something in Samson’s chest became tangled, his breath stuttered.

He opened his mouth to say something but he couldn’t make a sound. Cullen tilted his head and closed his eyes, his tongue rose slowly, stained with red, reminding him that his skin was alive.

“…Cullen… _fuck…_ ” Samson exhaled, realizing only then that he had been holding his breath.

He pulled his arm back, but Cullen clung to the frayed sleeve of his tunic, sticking his arm into the cell in his attempt to stop him.

“Wait!” he pleaded.

Samson could have broken that arm.

He could have grabbed it at the joints and bent it, the bones would have creaked like a dry stick and _snap_ , the forearm would have crumpled, twisted and useless. Although the lack of red lyrium was making him weak and trembling, he certainly still had enough strength in his body to be able to do it. He remembered the Templar training well and all the hours he spent with drills in the Gallows’ courtyard.

Again he searched Cullen’s gaze and, _damnation,_ his eyelids were heavy, the irises clear but his pupils hazy.

… and realized he couldn’t do it.

He knew what was behind that look, the nasty desperation that would push better Templars than them to do anything to get another drop of lyrium. Samson had had the same look and stopped looking into the mirror.

Cullen the recruit. Cullen the good guy. Cullen who was afraid of his own shadow.

Cullen the beautiful. Cullen, who waited until late at night to masturbate, made sure Samson slept by calling him with a soft voice before sticking his hand down his pants and then stifling the groans with the back of his hand, believing he wouldn’t hear him.

Samson stepped back suddenly feeling light-headed.

“… Look at you...,” he gasped, and his voice came out hoarse. It was supposed to be an insult, but the words in the mouth almost tasted like a compliment.

“… Raleigh…” Cullen muttered in a soft voice, his fingers holding tightly onto the sleeve of the tunic… as if he was the one in the cell; as if it were upon Samson to do him a favour.

Samson shook his head, shutting his eyes tight. Once again, on the inside he wanted to scream, to do _something!_

He hated the imploring note in Cullen’s voice.

“…Damn you!” he cursed.

He put his hands through the bars and grabbed Cullen’s cloak, sinking his fingers into the soft fur, only to wrench it forward sharply.

The breastplate of his armour slammed against the bars of the cell with a metallic clang and their lips collided in a kiss, all teeth, rushed and not very pleasant, but Cullen groaned all the same and Samson felt pleasure churning his stomach.

He had thought of kissing him so many times in Kirkwall.

He had thought of many other things, too.

Cullen, with his bright eyes and plump lips…

With his tongue he found the scar bisecting his lip and squeezed it between his teeth, feeling Cullen whimper hot breathed into his mouth.

He tasted like blood, acrid and iron.

His blood.

For Samson, this had nothing to do with the taste of red lyrium. His temples throbbed in search of a melody now silent, he would have done anything to drown the need to hear it… So he filled his ears with Cullen’s fragmented gasping, who instead had to hear the traces of a song in the drops of his corruption.

It was Samson singing for him…

It must have been a hallucination, yet Samson’s side still ached where he had been pressed against the iron. The blood that had dripped from his nose was now dry on his lips, scabby like the back of a varghest.

Pain had always been an excellent indicator to recognize reality. It cleared his mind, silenced the voice within him that wanted to scream.

He relaxed his fingers on the edges of the mantle. He let go and stretched out his arms palms on the thick fur, but did not lift his hands from his shoulders. Cullen didn’t want _him…_ what drew him closer was only the corruption in Samson’s blood. Once again what Samson wanted wasn’t what he eventually got…

“You’re desperate…” he commented bitterly, a warm breath on Cullen’s still parted lips “… _I’m…_ desperate…”

And dead. In any case, no matter the sentence. Whether it was the executioner or time, the lyrium would have claimed him anyway, in the end. But not Cullen.

Cullen was clean.

Cullen, who made the bed every morning and folded the blanket under his pillow, polished his greaves every night and barely smiled when Samson offered him a hand to get up during training.

Cullen, who refused to go out drinking with the other Templars, but made an exception for Samson when he took him to eat a good slice of fish and egg pie at the docks. Cullen the newcomer, Cullen to whom he had been the guide, with whom he had shared a room… The same Cullen Samson had had a crush on like he hadn’t had since he was a kid.

Cullen deserved better.

“Raleigh…” he panted with his soft voice, and Samson screwed up his eyes forcefully, feeling the cold radiating from the bars to either side of his face, reminding him that they had always been on two different fronts… which had always been out of reach.

“Make sure you don’t fall off your pedestal!” he growled. His forehead slammed hard against Cullen’s, and his hands all of a sudden let go of the mantle, pushing him away.

Cullen stumbled over his feet, dazed from the shock. His eyesight was filled with white sparks for a moment, and the melody in his ears was overpowered by the ringing of his eardrums.

He fell to the ground, feeling his body sinking into mist, and, far away, he heard Samson’s voice screaming something. The heart was beating fast, he could hear it in the song and in every drop of blood lingering on the floor.

Shouts and clatter, the squeak of moving hinges.

He blinked and felt hands clasped under his armpits and lifting him.

Was it Samson? For a moment he thought so, but then he blinked again and saw him standing behind bars, his hands raised in surrender, and three men wielding swords surrounding him.

Cullen felt himself seized by other hands and leaning against someone’s shoulder. His mind was still shrouded in the fog of corruption and shock.

“The commander is wounded, there is blood!” someone was talking and seemed light years away, even though they shouted only a few centimetres from his ear.

It sounded like the Herald’s voice. What he would be doing down here was beyond Cullen. But Thorold had probably grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him away.

“We heard screams, there’s a knife in the cell”

“He attacked the commander!”

“Ra—” Cullen murmured with his mouth dry. Then one of the three guards punched Samson in the face so hard that he fell to the ground.

The pulse in his mind grew faster, the song louder.

“Wait!” he cried out, but only in his head.

He raised a hand towards Samson and tried to get back to his feet, wriggle out of the arms that hold him… but his legs trembled and they did not support him, his boots slipped on the wet stone floor of the dungeons.

Strength abandoned him and the last thing he saw was Samson curled up on the ground, surrounded by the boots of the guards, blood-soaked and filthy, still singing for him.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, visit the [original](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25266649) to give it some love!
> 
> ———————————
> 
> This is my first translation, and I'm so honoured that Martiverse let me do this! She was just the most awesome author to work with! I could not have hoped for a better first time!!! ♥ Thank you again! ♥ :D
> 
> ... And now she included my character into this story and I'm just the happiest bunny in the whole universe right now AHHHH! ヽ(^o^)ノ ....
> 
> ———————————
> 
> I just loved this story and wanted you all to read it as well!


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